I’m leaving tomorrow for a Women of Faith Conference with some of my in-laws. While that may be great I am worried about Saturday because it was that day, four years ago, that my fiance’s father passed away. It’s a really really bad time for his mother, while he and his sister are generally okay with it, his mom seriously just gets upset at the slightest little thing and ends up really just upsetting herself over things that don’t matter and then it gets all of us upset so…as you can imagine it was a difficult time. They were married I think 20 or 25 years before he passed.

I joined a gym today for women. They were super nice and really helpful and I am going in on Monday for orientation and I think a free session with a personal trainer. I’m going to make sure of that though. She gave me a great deal and took 50.00 off the sign up fee and I got a free t-shirt. :D Wunderbar. They have a lot of classes, I’m interested in taking Belly Dancing and Zumba and Kickboxing and even maybe Salsa Aerobics. Sounds fun and I also learned that a sauna burns 600 calories in 30 minutes! – Sign me up! They have a sauna and I got a free pass to go there. I don’t like to be hot so I don’t know if I’d like it. I’ve tried it before but nothing too fantastic.

Still waiting for my Windows XP cd to arrive. I put linux on my machine and while it is great, there are problems that I find annoying. So I tried to install XP from various sources until I found out that it is a specific version licensed to Toshiba ( computer manu.) and that I’d have to get the restore disks from them, i.e. pay 29.95 s&h for a free cd. Blimey. It’ll takie 5-7 business days to reach me and I have no idea when it was sent I don’t know when it’ll be here. *Sigh*

4. Wear a pointed Kaiser helmet and a monocle and carry a riding crop.

5. Gradually speak softer and softer and then suddenly point to a student and scream “YOU! WHAT DID I JUST SAY?”

6. Deliver your lecture through a hand puppet. If a student asks you a question directly, say in a high-pitched voice, “The Professor can’t hear you, you’ll have to ask *me*, Winky Willy”.

7. If someone asks a question, walk silently over to their seat, hand them your piece of chalk, and ask, “Would YOU like to give the lecture, Mr. Smartypants?”

8. Pick out random students, ask them questions, and time their responses with a stop watch. Record their times in your grade book while muttering “tsk, tsk”.

9. Ask students to call you “Tinkerbell” or “Surfin’ Bird”.

10. Stop in mid-lecture, frown for a moment, and then ask the class whether your butt looks fat.

11. Play “Kumbaya” on the banjo.

12. Show a video on medieval torture implements to your calculus class. Giggle throughout it.

13. Announce “you’ll need this”, and write the suicide prevention hotline number on the board.

14. Wear mirrored sunglasses and speak only in Turkish. Ignore all questions.

15. Start the lecture by dancing and lip-syncing to James Brown’s “Sex Machine.”

16. Ask occassional questions, but mutter “as if you gibbering simps would know” and move on before anyone can answer.

17. Ask the class to read Jenkins through Johnson of the local phone book by the next lecture. Vaguely imply that there will be a quiz.

18. Have one of your graduate students sprinkle flower petals ahead of you as you pace back and forth.

19. Address students as “worm”.

20. Announce to students that their entire grades will be based on a single-question oral final exam. Imply that this could happen at any moment.

21. Turn off the lights, play a tape of crickets chirping, and begin singing spirituals.

22. Ask for a volunteer for a demonstration. Ask them to fill out a waiver as you put on a lead apron and light a blowtorch.

23. Point the overhead projector at the class. Demand each student’s name, rank, and serial number.

24. Begin class by smashing the neck off a bottle of vodka, and announce that the lecture’s over when the bottle’s done.

25. Have a band waiting in the corner of the room. When anyone asks a question, have the band start playing and sing an Elvis song.

26. Every so often, freeze in mid sentence and stare off into space for several minutes. After a long, awkward silence, resume your sentence and proceed normally.

27. Wear a “virtual reality” helmet and strange gloves. When someone asks a question, turn in their direction and make throttling motions with your hands.

28. Mention in passing that you’re wearing rubber underwear.

29. Growl constantly and address students as “matey”.

30. Devote your math lecture to free verse about your favorite numbers and ask students to “sit back and groove”.

31. Announce that last year’s students have almost finished their class projects.

32. Inform your English class that they need to know Fortran and code all their essays. Deliver a lecture on output format statements.

33. Bring a small dog to class. Tell the class he’s named “Boogers McGee” and is your “mascot”. Whenever someone asks a question, walk over to the dog and ask it, “What’ll be, McGee?”

34. Wear a feather boa and ask students to call you “Snuggles”.

35. Tell your math students that they must do all their work in a base 11 number system. Use a complicated symbol you’ve named after yourself in place of the number10 and threaten to fail students who don’t use it.

36. Claim to be a chicken. Squat, cluck, and produce eggs at irregular intervals.

37. Bring a CPR dummy to class and announce that it will be the teaching assistant for the semester. Assign it an office and office hours.

38. Have a grad student in a black beret pluck at a bass while you lecture.

39. Sprint from the room in a panic if you hear sirens outside.

40. Give an opening monologue. Take two minute “commercial breaks” every ten minutes.

41. Tell students that you’ll fail them if they cheat on exams or “fake the funk”.

42. Announce that you need to deliver two lectures that day, and deliver them in rapid-fire auctioneer style.

43. Pass out dental floss to students and devote the lecture to oral hygiene.

44. Announce that the entire 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica will be required reading for your class. Assign a report on Volume 1, Aardvark through Armenia, for next class.

45. Ask students to list their favorite showtunes on a signup sheet. Criticize their choices and make notes in your grade book.

46. Sneeze on students in the front row and wipe your nose on your tie.

47. Warn students that they should bring a sack lunch to exams.

48. Refer frequently to students who died while taking your class.

49. Show up to lecture in a ventilated clean suit. Advise students to keep their distance for their own safety and mutter something about “that bug I picked up in the field”.

50. Jog into class, rip the textbook in half, and scream, “Are you pumped? ARE YOU PUMPED? I CAN’T HEEEEEEAR YOU!”

I taught the same class today as I did Friday, except for 6th period. I love the planning period as 6th, it means I can leave early. I took a job for Wednesday from 11:15 – 3:00p, what a job. I like it. My mother-in-law gave me some info about classes I can take to receive my teaching certification without having any teaching education with my bachelor’s degree, and it’ll only take 6 months. So apparently it is what God wants me to do, even though I want to run screaming in the other direction. I want to do it less and less because it’s what my dad wanted me to do and he doesn’t even know me enough to say something like that. He’s my dad and I love him and I wish our relationship was close but we just can’t seem to get a long on key issues but …I digress. Too much info has been given :P

Class was great today (Friday, Nov. 3), until last period. I subbed for an English class and the teacher was really really organized and structured a very good class. They were short on subs so I had to sub a history class 6th period. What a nightmare! These kids would not listen to anything I said at all. then I had some girl start swearing and I said, is that really necessary and she said well I asked you to do something about it but you didn’t…I told her no one deserves to be spoken to like that, so at least I had the last word! :) left a note for teacher that her class was OUT of control. there were a few good students who were super sweet to me and did their work. The staff at this particular school were none-to friendly either. I had a substitute badge on all day and I had to keep asking where things were and no one at lunch really spoke to me until a lady asked me who I was in for. I felt so out of place in the teacher’s lunch area. :-/ I finished up quickly and went back to my room. It was a decent day other than my last period class.